LEED Ban Proposed by U.S. Senator

A ban on Federal funds for LEED building has been inserted in a transportation funding bill by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). Wicker's intent isn't to promote use of non-FSC lumber, but to restrict "what he sees as Federally funded "green washing."

After three years, six comment periods and plenty of robust debate, the members of the U.S. Green Building Council approved LEED v4 in earlier this month. But the approval process was frought, and in the lead-up to LEED v4, states with larger private forestry businesses - notably Maine, Georgia, and North Carolina - moved to ban LEED for state-funded projects. The reason: LEED gave short shrift to wood as a component in green building, and FSC-certified wood was the only approved definition of "green" wood.

SA 1777. Mr. WICKER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 1243, making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

Sec. 4___. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to require the use of a green buildings certification system to construct or modify a building other than a green buildings certification system that:

(1) is based on voluntary consensus standards that have an American National Standard Institute (ANSI) designation or were developed by an ANSI-audited designator; and

(2) only excludes a building material if the exclusion is well-founded and based on robust scientific data and risk assessment principles.

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Bill's background includes more than 10 years in print manufacturing management, followed by more than 30 years in business reporting on industrial manufacturing in the forest products industries, including printing and packaging at American Printer (Features Editor) and Graphic Arts Monthly (Editor in Chief) magazines; and in secondary wood manufacturing for WoodworkingNetwork.com (Editorial Director).

In addition to his work as a journalist, Bill avidly supports efforts to expand and improve educational opportunities in the manufacturing sectors, including 10 years on the advisory board of the Print & Graphics Scholarship Foundation; six years with the U.S. WoodLinks educational organization; and currently with the Woodwork Career Alliance Education Committee, which supports educator scholarships, and develops high school and secondary school curricula in concert with efforts to certify manufacturing professionals skills standards. He is also on the Industry Advisory Board of the Greater West Town Training Partnership Woodworking Program, which has trained and place more than 950 adults in industrial in wood manufacturing careers through its award-winning grant-funded training program.

Bill volunteers for Foinse Research Station, a biological field station located at the heart of the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark in North West Ireland. Foinse Research Station is focused on providing a platform for third level and university level research in forests, woodlands, blanket bogs, geology, archaeology, speleology and hydrology. Foisne is one of more than 1,200 biological field stations around the globe and one of more than 200 members of the Organization of Biological Field Stations.